Born in Trippstadt, a city in Bavaria, then part of the German Empire, Weinkauff attended the Gymnasium in Speyer, after which he studied law in Munich, Heidelberg, Würzburg, and Paris.

BNSDJ), and remained a member after the organisation was transformed into the National Socialist Association of Legal Professionals (German: Nationalsozialistischer Rechtswahrerbund; abbr.

Strafsenat) under President of the Court Erwin Bumke, where he was, among other things, responsible for criminal cases of "Racial Defilement", known as "Rassenschande".

Bumke justified this promotion by writing: "Your conduct has shown that you will ruthlessly support the National Socialist state.

"In 2015, evidence came to light that Weinkauff was partially responsible for a judgement on appeal on 2 September 1936 regarding the Blutschutzgesetz, part of the Nuremberg Race Laws, in which he, among four other judges, ruled whether or not the defendant was to be classified as Jewish.

In his book The German Judiciary and National Socialism, Weinkauff supported the thesis of legal scholar Gustav Radbruch that the German judiciare was completely powerless against the authority of the Nazi regime due to the doctrine of legal positivism, and thus could not have prevented any injustice perpetrated by the regime.

Additionally, he described a thesis of a religiously inspired natural law which he also attempted to integrate into the verdicts of the Federal Court of Justice during his tenure.

[10] Opponents of this thesis state that the German judiciary between 1933 and 1945 was not a victim of the regime at all, but rather, according to legal scholar Udo Reifner: "Judges and prosecutors, administrative lawyers and law professors, and to a certain smaller extent also ordinary lawyers, participated out of their own convictions and professional matter of course within the process of construction of the 'Third Reich' and, for this purpose, abused the institution of the legal system.

"[12]The historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler described the thesis of Weinkauff regarding National Socialism in the legal system as "unbearable apologetics".